Tenebrae
by Philadelphia Tuesday
Summary: Martha and Lionel spend some time together during a power outage.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Martha has never been afraid of the dark. Even as a child, she understood that there were no monsters hiding in her closet or under her bed. If there were, they wouldn't have any qualms about attacking during daylight hours, she reasoned. Therefore, if you were to be afraid of monsters in the closet, you would have to be afraid every hour of every day.  
  
So she is unfazed when the power goes off. Unfazed, but mildly annoyed. It's 6:45, long past dark, and rain has been pounding the windows since 11am, alternating unpredictably between weak and merciless. She would have been retrieving her purse from beneath her desk and bidding Mr. Luthor a pleasant goodbye in just 15 minutes. Now what? How can she leave when she can't see the door?  
  
She had been leaning on his desk, dialing the telephone for him when the room went dark. 

"Why did you stop? What happened?" She straightens up, a bit unsteadily, as her eyes attempt to adjust to the sudden blackness. He grips her arm, and she almost laughs again, remembering the little finger-shaped bruises once left by a young cousin during a thunderstorm.   
  
"The power went out. It's completely dark in here. I can't even see the phone anymore, and it's probably dead anyway." She sets the receiver on the desk. "I guess I could feel my way to the door."  
  
She is forming her strategy for finding the door without tripping over anything when he finally says, "No. Stay." Then, as an afterthought: "Please?"

She is smart enough to realize that a move is being made and too exhausted to object. "Okay." 

He lifts himself out of the chair and reaches out for her arm again. Finding it, he guides her to the wall. They sit together quietly, backs leaning against the wall.  
  
For a brief absurd moment, the thought occurs to her that he has orchestrated everything-the storm, the power outage-to bring them together like this. But, really, if she's honest with herself, she can't pretend she hasn't seen it coming. If not now, then tomorrow, or a week from now, and can she say her answer would be any different then from what it will be tonight?  
  
Her thoughts are coming faster now, tripping over themselves, tangling inarticulately, weaving together lines from novels and poems and movies and songs, anything to distract her from her own protestations: Jonathan will be hurt, Clark will be destroyed, or maybe Clark will be hurt and Jonathan will be destroyed. She can't remember which way it's supposed to go; this has been her mantra for weeks, since sympathy and curiosity became interest and attraction.   
  
(It is, of course, still a valid concern. She sacrificed everything she ever knew twenty years ago to be with Jonathan. Her father warned her then that she was bound to regret it someday, and maybe that day has come. Maybe she's entitled to stop pretending she's happy with the choice she made, that she finds the intricacies of baking intellectually stimulating, that she will never want anything more than what she has. Maybe she can take this one little thing for herself instead of worrying about how everyone else will feel about it. No one has to know. It will just be one more secret to add to a long, long list.)

_too tired to fight so I just gave in_

In the deafening silence, her ears begin to ring, and his hand finds her face.  
  
"Where is he?" she whispers, knowing he won't need further clarification.   
  
She can hear his predatory smile: "Not here."  
  
And it shouldn't be enough to satisfy her, but it is. And this is the part where she's supposed to say, "Maybe we shouldn't do this," but she stays quiet during the moment that seems to last forever; he's waiting for her to say it, too, and if he's surprised when she says nothing, he doesn't let on.  
  
His mouth presses briefly against hers and before long his hands are venturing everywhere they shouldn't go

_taking me to parts of the city I rarely think of and never visit_

(from a book she flipped through once, intrigued by the spine, until she remembered that  
small-town married girls were supposed to read Jan Karon novels and mysteries  
featuring plucky middle-aged heroines, so she bought herself a Carolyn Hart  
instead.)  
  
His slender, blunt fingers rake less than tenderly across the landscape of accidentally exposed flesh where her shirt hitched up when they slid onto the floor, and she can't find the energy to tell him to stop.   
  
So she doesn't, and he doesn't.

_and he would never have guessed  
that in her cast-iron dress  
she was burning beyond recognition_

Afterward, the room is silent for a long time.   
  
(She does not say: this should not have happened, this will never happen again, this is wrong.   
He does not say: I'm sorry, I hope this won't affect our working relationship, this was a   
one-time thing.)  
  
It is he who breaks the silence: "Are you all right?"  
  
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, offering only a wry "Yes." How bizarre is it that someone like him would ask that question? Why would he care if she wasn't? At the same time, she can see why he asked: she's not the kind of woman who does this kind of thing, therefore something must be wrong with her. Perhaps she got ahold of some of those troublesome meteor rocks, and will require instant medical attention to forcibly return her to her senses. And, as she isn't that kind of woman and yet she has done this kind of thing, now is the time when her conscience should begin screaming the lectures that will plague her thoughts for months, even when she is asleep.   
  
"Good," he says, and the smile she hears is slightly less predatory and slightly more genuine.  
  
She falls silent again, considering what has just happened. Her conscience is uncharacteristically quiet. What harm has been done? Who has to know? She can't sort out what she feels, exactly. On the one hand, she's absurdly pleased, tempted to suggest further possibilities. On the other, she's perfectly aware of the consequences of what she has done here and the guilt she should be feeling, and isn't. Yet.

_and so a secret kiss brings madness with the bliss_

The lights flicker back on. She glances at her watch and has to blink hard before she can actually make out the numbers. 9:45. Three hours. She stands up, having fully collected herself now, and helps him up, too. "Is everything okay?"  
  
"Yes, I'm sure it will be. It's almost 10, though. I really need to get going."  
  
This time, he does not stop her. Instead, he latches on to her arm and follows her to the door. They stop, and she cannot think of what to say. She knows what she should say. But there is no audience to please now, no one around to appreciate her morality or reward her for it. He says: "You'll be here tomorrow?"   
  
"Of course," she assures him.

_you stay out all night, til the break of day  
little by little, I'm losing you, I can see_

In the car, on the drive home, she tries to figure out what to tell them. Outside, the wind is still blowing, but the rain is considerably lighter. Maybe they won't notice that she's hiding something. She's perfected the art of keeping secrets over the years. She decides to tell the truth. Not the whole truth, but some of it.  
  
And it turns out she's right, anyway; Jonathan and Clark were worried, but they knew where she was and figured that she would be delayed. She showers quickly, washing her hands afterward with water so cold that her blood seems to freeze. It is not until after she has crawled unobtrusively into bed beside a sleeping Jonathan that she realizes something is wrong. Another five minutes pass before she can put her finger on it. Then she rises and turns off the bathroom light, closes the bedroom door, and draws the curtains closed.   
  
The room is nearly pitch black and dead silent as she falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.  
  
Her conscience remains dormant.  
  
Tomorrow she will return to work, and everything will be normal, and they will not speak of what happened for another week. When he finally broaches the subject tentatively, believing he has offended her somehow, she will assure him that is not the case.   
  
It will happen again that night, and that will not be the last time.


End file.
